Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid have caused enough ethics headaches for Democrats that you may wonder why their party sticks with them. And the party leadership’s vocal backing of Rep. Chris Van Hollen for Maryland’s open Senate seat — as opposed to the just-as-qualified and more liberal African-American Rep. Donna Edwards — alienates so many key constituencies that you may ask why it’s worth it.
The reason in all of these cases is money. These are three of the Democrats’ best fundraisers, and a good fundraising haul for the party will buy you plenty of indulgences in the Democratic Party.
Clinton’s and Reid’s ethical stumbles are not unrelated to their fundraising prowess.
Begin with Clinton: Imagine she’s not hiding any smoking guns in the emails she deliberately kept off of government servers. The flap still reminds Democrats of what they dislike about her. She’s secretive, distrustful, and at least comes across as untrustworthy. But almost nobody—Left or Right—would be surprised if we learned she’s hiding something that ties the Clinton Foundation’s funding to State Department policy. (We’ve already seen circumstantial evidence of this.)
Which leads us back to her unrivaled fundraising. One reason Hillary has all but cleared the Democratic field for president in 2016 is that nobody else could approach her on fundraising. In 2008, she raised $118 million before the Iowa Caucuses. That put her only a bit ahead of Barack Obama, but it was more than twice what any Republican candidate raised.
What came with this fundraising dominance? Close ties to K Street and Wall Street that made the Left uneasy. Her fundraising success as a senator was often tied up with policymaking that benefited her donors.
The moment Hillary officially announces her candidacy, the money will flow in her direction, probably in unprecedented amounts. Is there any other Democrat who could even get in the same ballpark?
It’s a similar story with Reid. Reid has a long history of ethics headaches involving the mingling of policymaking with fundraising or personal finances. Reid is currently tied up in the investigation surrounding a major Democratic donor, Salomon Melgen, and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Why is Reid still the majority leader, especially after his party lost control of the Senate? Why aren’t Democrats finding a younger, less tainted candidate to run for his Senate seat in 2016?
In part, it’s because Reid is a fundraising juggernaut. The exit door from Reid’s Senate office seems to be a revolving one. Bank lobbyist Jimmy Ryan and fellow K Streeter Kai Anderson — both former Reid aides — have already thrown D.C. fundraisers for Reid’s re-election. Dozens of other K Street friends can raise cash when Reid asks, along with the green-energy folks he courts at annual conferences, and the casino industry that considers him an invaluable ally.
Last election, Reid’s Senate Majority PAC raised $47 million, more than any other super PAC, and more than the top two GOP super PACs combined. The guy can haul in the cash, and so Democrats can’t tell him to buzz off.
The party’s tendency to cling to their best fundraisers has caused another headache for Democrats — deepening the racial tension in Maryland’s Democratic Party.
The retirement of Sen. Barbara Mikulski has sparked a scramble for the safe open seat. Already, Reid has endorsed Rep. Chris Van Hollen over the more liberal Rep. Donna Edwards, hoping to coalesce the party behind him.
This reopens an old wound in Maryland’s Democratic Party. About 30 percent of Maryland’s electorate is black. Approximately half of all registered Democrats in Maryland are black. Yet Maryland has never had a black governor (white candidates carried the Democratic banner in all gubernatorial elections but one) or a black senator, or even a black Senate nominee.Republicans, in contrast, nominated a black candidate in 2006. As vanilla icing on the cake, in Annapolis, both the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate are white Democrats.
Given this awkward history, why choose Van Hollen over Edwards?
Money, again.
Van Hollen represents Montgomery County, the second-richest county in the U.S. that has a population of more than a million people.When Van Hollen chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2010, he failed at holding onto the House, but he succeeded in outraising Republicans, $163 million to $133 million. In 2014, after he had left House leadership, his “Victory Now” PAC to raise money for fellow House Democrats was the fourth most successful PAC of any rank-and-file Democrat.
This love of prodigious fundraisers has caused ethics problems for Democrats in the past. Bob Torricelli was named Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman because of his “fundraising prowess.” He displayed this “prowess” with tricks likeintroducing a bill to help Schering Plough extend its monopoly on Claritin, the day after the company hosted a $50,000 fundraiser for Democrats. He finally dropped out of his own re-election in 2002 amid investigations into his fundraising practices, and his acceptance of gifts from a donor. Charlie Rangel’s reign as Ways & Means chairman was similarly pocked with policy-contribution confluences.
This history may explain why the Left is so much more antagonistic to money in politics. On their side, cash really is as corrupting as they say.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Sunday and Wednesday on washingtonexaminer.com.
